2 DIAMONDS IN A ROUGH ECONOMY

Yanks and Mets toil to fill new stadiums

Sunday, March 29, 2009

BY MARK MUELLER AND JENNY VRENTAS

Star-Ledger Staff

For three years, Yankees chief operating officer Lonn Trost
sweated every detail as the team's new $1.5 billion
stadium rose in the Bronx, from the placement of 1,400
high-definition monitors to the selection of historical
photos in the memorabilia-packed museum.

Now, five days before the world's priciest baseball
cathedral opens with an exhibition game against the Chicago
Cubs, Trost is sweating for a different reason: He's
got to fill it.

"Most expensive stadium, highest prices and the
worst economy in history means I don't sleep at
night," the 63-year-old New Jerseyan, a longtime
Yankees executive, said during a media tour of the new
Yankee Stadium last week. "Everybody in every walk of
life is suffering from the economy, and we're no
different."

Over in Queens, where the Mets are preparing to throw
open the doors to their new $800 million home, Citi Field,
guides have conducted tours for thousands of fans, part of a
multipronged approach to drum up sales.

"We've never done that before, but we've
never had a new building to open, and the country
hasn't had these kinds of economic challenges in many,
many years, so clearly you have to do business in a
different fashion," said David Newman, the team's
senior vice president of marketing.

Conceived at a time when home prices and the stock market
were hurtling toward record highs and corporations had
plenty of cash for luxury suites and box seats, the grand
new stadiums make their debut in the longest and deepest
recession since the Great Depression.

No one is predicting acres of empty rows in either venue.
Fans are, by and large, a loyal bunch infused with a love of
tradition. And both teams are marquee franchises with strong
drawing power.

But sports economists say the Yankees and Mets can't bank on the kinds of enormous profits they saw in better times, especially as they begin to pay down the debt they took on to build the ballparks. Both stadiums were financed almost entirely through the sale of bonds....